It’s the “Summer of Flatland” and it’s been RAD so far…..

So earlier this year riders from all over Texas converged in Houston for the “TexFLat Freedom Jam”, the jam was held on June 6th which is also the anniversary of “D-Day”, unfortunately I was unable to attend but judging from all the stories and pictures shared all over the interwebs it looks a like a fantastic time was had by all.

Photos courtesy of Blaine Smith.

…after the jam everyone turned their attention to another event that was happening in July, one of the biggest and baddest contests held every year and put together by fellow riders Scott O’Brien and Terry Adams, of course we’re talking about Voodoo Jam!!

This year this event maintained the hype on being one of the best events out there, riders came from all over the world, some of the biggest names and some serious up and coming talent was on hand including a huge pile of Texas riders as well, some of the highlights included the “super kids” coming all the way from Japan (11 and 13) and terrorizing the AM class, these kids are super hyped on flatland and can put down some serious moves, especially for being so young. Matthias, Ucchie, and Dez Marsen wound up taking the podiums in the Pro class in that order, all 3 riders were nailing some incredible runs so the judges really had their work cut out for them.

Some additional highlights and what makes this event so epic is all the “mini events” it brings with it, riders in Austin (and riders who came from surrounding areas) were treated to an amazing pre-jam at the legendary Texas flatland landmark known as the OG as Dez Marsen was in town for several days and riding with the locals, on Saturday the weekend before Voodoo was to be held there was at least 15-20 riders from all over and it was awesome, so much fun and insane riding went down that the OG didn’t even clear out until the weeeee hours of the night, we even had pizza delivered at one point! hah! Many many many thanks to everyone that hosted Dez that week and weekend and it was truly awesome and an honor to get to ride with and meet him.
There was also a massive pre-jam down in New Orleans preceding the actual contest, it was a million degrees out and shade was a premium but that didn’t stop riders from all over the world from getting rad and putting out banger after banger, some of the qualifying events and parts of the contest took place here and the vibe was pretty awesome for sure. Texas own Jim Mckay put together an awesome video of the pre-jam, there’s a couple of pretty rad videos from the contest floating around as well that I’ve posted below.

Coming up in the fall we have Battle of the Rockies and another Texas Flatlanders Jam to be held in Dallas, this year is looking great for Flatland and it’s only going to get better…

One of the most amazing parts of this weekend was watching Terry Adams give his personal bike away to a young rider, I bet that young man never thought something like that would happen and it was pretty rad to watch it unfold, this video shows that astounding moment and some more of the future of flatland aka the “super kids” from Japan.